News & Articles

In New Orleans, a federal jury ordered Merck to pay $51 million to a health-conscious retired FBI agent who suffered a heart attack at age 58 after taking the blockbuster drug for about 2 1/2 years.

Article about the increase in asbestos litigation in the State of Delaware. According to the Superior Court Prothonotary's office, 80 asbestos cases have been filed since January.

Recent findings, released in May from Washington, D.C.-based The Polling Co. Inc., support the assumption that businesses of all sizes are looking to those they normally face across the aisle in a courtroom - plaintiffs’ attorneys - to represent them in business-to-business litigation.

A pathologist who helped some Mallinckrodt workers and their families get compensation for radiation-induced cancers is spearheading a similar effort for former workers at two Metro-East plants once involved in the nation's atomic-weapons program.

The Delaware Superior Court for New Castle County denied a motion in limine, by the DaimlerChrysler Corp., to exclude expert testimony that working with automotive friction products causes asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Medical and scientific general causation experts presented by plaintiffs alleging that their exposure to friction products in DaimlerChrysler vehicles has caused or will cause asbestos-related disease are sufficiently reliable to pass muster under Daubert, a Delaware judge held May 9.

Although a New Jersey jury spared Merck & Co. a double hit to the pocketbook, analysts are concerned that its negative findings on the marketing of Vioxx could continue to hurt the company as it defends itself against almost 10,000 lawsuits filed by users of the now-pulled arthritis drug.

This is a transcript of a morning show on NPR that has comments from David Levy of SimmonsCooper LLC. The topic is U.S. attorneys taking up cases in countries around the world.

USG Corp. announced a unique asbestos-liability settlement Monday that could let the Chicago-based wallboard manufacturer emerge from bankruptcy by fall, repay its debtors in full, and resolve all current and future personal-injury asbestos claims against it.

As the first federal jury deliberates whether Merck & Co.'s painkiller Vioxx contributed to a Florida man's death, investors on Friday digested new claims that the battered company withheld key data about the drug's dangers.

Law Firm’s $10.2 million donation is first of its kind to aid worldwide cancer research.

Dozens of heart attack and stroke victims in Northeastern Pennsylvania are preparing to join the tidal wave of lawsuits against one of America’s largest drug companies. So far, more than 5,000 people nationwide have sued Merck & Co. Inc., claiming the company concealed evidence that its wonder-drug, Vioxx, caused serious cardiovascular problems.

Computer whizzes from two area law firms help evacuees from Hurricane Katrina wade through the muddy waters of the federal bureaucracy to find lost loved ones and fill out the forms they need to get help.

Merck & Co. (MRK) was dealt a resounding defeat last month when a Texas jury awarded $253.5 million to the family of Robert Ernst, who died in 2001 after taking Merck's painkiller, Vioxx, for eight months.

Two of the jurors who will decide if Merck & Co. Inc. caused the death of 59-year-old Robert Ernst are only 20 years old. They're old enough to help decide the outcome of the first of nearly 4,300 lawsuits filed across the country involving claims against the once-popular painkiller Vioxx. But they're not old enough to order a glass of wine with dinner.

Nation’s leading plaintiff firms – Madison Co. IL-based SimmonsCooper LLC and NYC-based Hanly Conroy Bierstein & Sheridan LLP – Join forces in New York to begin contingency litigation for business v. business.

In May 2000, SimmonsCooper LLC won the largest asbestos verdict in U.S. history, according to Mealey's Litigation Reporter.